Game Design & Production

Game designers are the visionaries and evangelists for a game development project. They thrive on new ideas and are always thinking about how users will interact and enjoy the experience that they’ve created. A great game designer possesses a combination of technical knowledge, artistic skill and most importantly, the ability to communicate and understand people.

Game designers spend significant amounts of time writing detailed documents specifying game mechanics, environments, playable characters and the game’s nemesis. This detail extends right down to how a particular item might behave, be animated and sound.

Game Design is a two year, full-time course written by experienced game designers, in consultation with local and international studios, to produce innovative graduates who will lead the next generation of game development.

Course Content

Stage One

The first year of the course begins by covering grounding in terminology and mechanics and roles of designer. Students will work on visualising ideas, prototyping, learning the fundamentals of 3D content creation and game programming as well as designing game levels, creating user interfaces and crafting game play experiences.

Towards the end of the year, game design students will work with programming students to develop projects with game design, production and quality assurance.

Stage Two

Second year focuses on the psychology of games, market research, exploring thinking and decision making processes along with understanding the producer’s role in managing and coordinating game projects. Students will be making more game prototypes around a range of different game types, genres and platforms.

During the major game project, game design students will collaborate with game art and game programming students to create an innovative original game to showcase their capabilities.

Students graduate at the end of Year 2 with an extensive portfolio with several games they have designed and produced, mechanical prototypes, large amounts of documented design ideas expressed in visual and written form.

Major Game Project

In second year of this course game design students will work together with game art and game programming students in development teams to design and produce a playable game. This project closely mirrors the real-world production cycle in an industry development studio, covering the entire process from pitching the game idea, through writing game design documents, evaluating technical requirements, managing workload, meeting deadlines, delivering commercial quality artwork and animation, bug-fixing, QA testing and market analysis of the game.

Subjects

Subjects you will study

Stage One

Introduction to Game Design
Health and Safety in the Office
Level Design Fundamentals
Design Prototyping Fundamentals
Narrative Design
Testing and Quality Assurance
Production Planning
Production

Stage Two

Psychology and Economies
Time to Make a Game
Designing the User Experience
Production for Clients
Proof of Concept
Sustainability
Major Production
Online Professional Portfolio

Software

Software You Will USe

Students utilize industry standard software and resources such as:

Unity, Unreal Engine, Twine, GameMaker — Game engine and development frameworks
Maya — 3D game asset creation
Perforce, Sourcetree — Project management and version control
Adobe Photoshop — Visualisation
Visual Studio, MonoDevelop — Programming tools
Microsoft Office Package

Careers

Your Career Opportunities

Game Designer
System Designer
Narrative Designer
Level Designer
UI Designer

Graduates can be found working in some of the worlds leading games studios, independent games studios and also creating their own digital content through the AIE incubator.

Game design graduates are also sought after in the growing field of ‘gamification’ as well as managing interactive initiatives for training, simulation, customer engagement and advertising.

Entry Requirements

Entry for this course is based on:

Interview - In the interview we are assessing your suitability for the course including any specific requirements you may have.
Portfolio - we are looking for evidence of creativity which is demonstrated through a collection of works in a medium of your choosing.
Copy of your Year 12 Certificate OR by achieving an Exit Level 3 score within the Australian Core Skills Framework assessments in reading and numeracy.

An Exit Level 3 score within the Australian Core Skills Framework assessments in reading and numeracy will show that you have the capability to be successful in this course. AIE can assist you with this assessment process if required and results will be reported to you as soon as practicable. As per the Department of Education and Training guidelines, assessment results are also available to the Department Secretary on request.

For more information please see our interview and portfolio page

Bachelor of Game Development

The Academy of Interactive Entertainment Ltd (AIE) has launched AIE Institute, an industry-leading higher education provider for Australia’s future game artists, designers and programmers.

AIE Graduates from the Advanced Diploma of Professional Game Development 10702NAT can continue their studies into AIE Institute's Bachelor of Game Development which has majors in game art, game design and game programming.

Find out more about AIE Institute

aie-institute-game-art-degree-thumbsquare

State Government Funding Information

State Funding

Students in Victoria and South Australia may be eligible for government funding for some of this course. Please refer to the following webpages:

Fees

Our Fees

Maximum tuition fees for the intake commencing February and July 2023

Game Design and Production		Tuition Fee
Year 1	CUA51020 Diploma of Screen and Media (2023)	$16,750
	delivered in conjunction with
	CUA51120 Diploma of Visual Arts (2023)	$16,150
Year 2	10702NAT Advanced Diploma of Professional Game Development (2024)	$17,300
	Total Tuition Fee	$50,200

The VET Student Loans program allows eligible students enrolled in AIE's approved Diploma, Advanced Diploma and Graduate Diploma courses to defer part of the cost of their tuition fees. Courses are subject to maximum loan caps and students will be required to pay any fee over and above that cap. For more information visit our VET Student Loans page.

Please note:

VET Student Loans will not be approved for students who do not meet eligibility requirements.
A VET student loan gives rise to a HELP debt that continues to be a debt due to the Commonwealth until it is repaid.
On successful completion of stage 1, students will be awarded recognition of prior learning or credit transfer towards Stage 2 of the Advanced Diploma.

For more information on our tuition fees, please visit our FEES page

To see our international fees, please visit our FEES page

STUDY MODE OPTIONS: CAMPUS | ONLINE | EVENINGS

Students can study this program in the following modes:

Study Mode	Campus	Day and times	Hours per week
Face to Face	AIE Campus in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra or Adelaide	Week days, 9am to 5pm	20 hours (full-time)
Online Day-time	AIE Online Campus	Week days, 9am to 5pm AEST	20 hours (full-time)
Online Evenings	AIE Online Campus	Week nights, 5pm to 9pm AEST	20 hours (full-time)
Online Part-time	AIE Online Campus	Week nights, 5pm to 9pm AEST	Flexible, between 4 - 20 hours

NATIONALLY-ACCREDITED QUALIFICATIONS

This two-year, full-time program has been developed with industry and is delivered through the following qualifications:

Game Design		Cricos
Year 1	CUA51020 Diploma of Screen and Media	106064C
	delivered in conjunction with
	CUA51120 Diploma of Visual Arts	106067M
Year 2	10702NAT Advanced Diploma of Professional Game Development	098405B